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A quick blurb about Notebooks / Netbooks

I’ve been getting really excited about getting a new laptop of some kind. The recent spate of netbooks from various manufacturers has me thinking lately that I don’t really need a full-blown laptop.

All I really do with my laptop is write, email, surf, and the occasional other little thing here and there… but nothing involving too much heavy lifting for the CPU or graphics. I definitely don’t need any kind of top end gaming laptop or anything.

So as a result, why should I spend close to $2000 on my next laptop?

Answer: I shouldn’t.

Netbooks have gotten me riled up lately, not only because as a product they are now beginning to show offerings of lower-end portables that are in the $500 and below pricepoint, but because most of the main netbook sellers also provide Linux of some sort as an option.

So I’ve been watching the developments in the netbook and notebook market eagerly for the past 6 months or so, and it seems like every week something new is popping up that grabs my attention, particularly from Dell.

HP is also making some really interesting moves in this market, but Dell has been going one step further and making low-priced regular notebooks as well.

A different linux blog which I follow regularly recently talked about the Dell Inspiron 15n, which gave me a total doubletake. I’m not looking for a regular 15″ laptop… I’ve been waiting for Dell to offer better options on their 12″ netbooks… but this made me reconsider that.

Even when I pimped it out with 4GB of memory, the top-end processor option and the slim LED display I still came out under $600. Not bad. Looks like the crappy economy is causing at least one company to make some interesting moves in pricing!

Anyway, it’s something I’m watching. Dell is putting more and more on the line by offering Ubuntu on many more of their products, and they’re not just hiding them in the closet or back room anymore like they were. It’s now possible to get Linux on their flagship models, which is saying something.

Since I’m in the market for a new laptop — be it a netbook or a full blown notebook — I’ll be keeping an eye on them in coming months. This is bound to get interesting.

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2 thoughts on “A quick blurb about Notebooks / Netbooks”

The biggest advantage I’ve noticed of netbooks over “traditional” laptops is battery life. A $350-$500 netbook should get you 4-6 hours of battery life, a similarly-priced notebook only gets about 2-2.5 hours.

That’s one of the things that I like about the notion of getting a netbook next. One of the factors for which I’m holding out right now is the mainstream availability of netbooks with solid state drives of 64GB and up. The price has come down a lot in those, and shortly we’ll see that as the defacto “standard” for netbook data storage.

The lack of a traditional spinning disk will serve to drive battery life up quite a bit.

About the Linux Critic

I'm a professional troubleshooter (a.k.a. IT Guy) who has been using Linux as his main desktop OS for over a decade.

I'm more technical than the "average user" by quite a ways, but I like to think that there's no reason why Linux and Free/Open Source Software can't find a home on the average user's desktop as a part of their everyday computing life.

I love to play around with technology, and I love to talk about it, so stick around and let me know what you're thinking.

DISCLAIMER: The posts I write and publish on this blog are my own opinions and the opinions of those who contribute to The Linux Critic, and in no way reflect the opinions or official positions of my employer or any of the employers of my contributors.

All content on this blog is copyright (C) Trent Isaacson unless otherwise indicated.